For nearly half a century, John Boorman’s 1977 feature Exorcist II: The Heretic has occupied a singular, deeply polarized niche in cinematic history. To mainstream audiences and casual horror fans, it is frequently cited as one of the most historically bewildering sequels ever produced—a monumental misfire immortalized by bizarre narrative choices, not least of which involved an Academy Award-nominated James Earl Jones donning a locust costume. To critics, it served as a cautionary tale of a prestige project crashing under the weight of its own hubris. Yet, as documentarian David Kittredge demonstrates in his meticulously crafted and deeply empathetic new film, Boorman and the Devil, the reality behind this cinematic anomaly is far more complex, tragic, and fascinating than its reputation suggests.
Spanning an exhaustive, deeply researched runtime that evolved from an initial 196-minute director’s cut into a tightly paced 112-minute theatrical version, Boorman and the Devil reframes The Heretic not as a cynical, profit-driven cash grab, but as a misguided labor of visionary ambition. Kittredge’s documentary, which arrives in theaters following years of archival collection, intimate interviews, and custom animation, explores the harrowing toll of artistic risk-taking. Through candid conversations with surviving cast and crew members—including Linda Blair, Louise Fletcher, and Steadicam inventor Garrett Brown—as well as modern filmmakers like Mike Flanagan and Karyn Kusama, the documentary unearths a story of brilliant craftspeople attempting to subvert genre conventions, only to be rejected by a public expecting cheap scares and familiar formulas.
Detailed Chronology: From Concept to Catastrophe
The Genesis of a Non-Sequel
The trajectory of Exorcist II began shortly after William Friedkin’s 1973 original adaptation of William Peter Blatty’s novel became a cultural phenomenon. When Warner Bros. sought a follow-up, John Boorman was initially approached to direct the first film. He had declined, citing ethical and emotional misgivings regarding the grueling treatment of the character Regan and the young actor portraying her.
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However, when Boorman was presented with William Goodhart’s draft for a sequel, the premise proved entirely antithetical to the despair-laden terror of Friedkin’s original work. Goodhart’s script—heavily influenced by the philosophical writings of Jesuit theologian and paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin—envisioned a cosmic exploration of good, evil, human evolution, and collective consciousness. In this early vision, Regan MacNeil was no longer a victim of demonic possession, but a spiritual catalyst: a transcendent figure endowed with advanced empathy and ESP who would harness her trauma to guide humanity toward a unified, enlightened state of divine consciousness.
Boorman envisioned the project as a philosophical counter-weight to the first film—an antidote to what he perceived as its nihilism. He brought in writer Rospo Pallenberg to reshape the narrative, injecting surrealist elements, hypnosis, and metaphysical inquiries. Yet, as production ramped up, the lofty philosophical ambitions began to buckle under the logistics of a major studio production.
A Production Plagued by Adversity
If the narrative ambitions were chaotic, the physical production of Exorcist II bordered on the apocalyptic. Hollywood folklore has long whispered that the set of The Heretic was cursed, and Kittredge’s documentary provides exhaustive documentation of the physical and psychological toll exacted upon the cast and crew.
- Health Crises: Director John Boorman contracted San Joaquin Valley fever—a rare, potentially life-threatening fungal infection that forced a five-week shutdown of the entire production. Compounding the catastrophe, both co-star Kitty Wynn and Oscar-winner Louise Fletcher suffered sudden, severe medical emergencies requiring emergency gallbladder surgeries that effectively bookended the shoot.
- On-Set Friction: Richard Burton, cast as Father Philip Lamont, arrived on set with severe personal demons. While initial reports of sobriety flickered, the grueling production schedule took its toll, adding volatile friction to an already stressed environment.
- The Editing Scramble: Following disastrous, hostile test screenings—recounted with characteristic, biting humor by original director William Friedkin—Warner Bros. panicked. The studio mandated radical re-edits, stripping away much of the dense theological framework, altering the narrative structure, and leaving Boorman’s cosmic sci-fi experiment looking like a butchered, incoherent horror sequel.
When the film finally premiered, the critical backlash was swift and merciless. Famed critic Gene Siskel branded it "the worst major motion picture I’ve seen in almost eight years on the job," while audiences hooted and laughed at sequences that were intended to evoke profound spiritual transcendence.
Supporting Context & Metrics: Deconstructing Boorman’s Oeuvre
To understand why Exorcist II turned out the way it did, Boorman and the Devil places the film within the broader context of its creator’s directorial filmography. John Boorman was never a standard studio gun-for-hire; he was an auteur whose career was defined by taking conventional genre expectations and violently subverting them into surreal, provocative art.
- Catch Us If You Can (1965): Rather than delivering a conventional musical showcase for The Dave Clark Five, Boorman transformed the project into a biting, cynical satire of advertising and consumer culture.
- Point Blank (1967): Stripping away the conventions of a standard neo-noir revenge thriller, Boorman utilized jarring non-linear editing, stark avant-garde compositions, and monochromatic color palettes to construct a film that functioned more like a waking dream.
- Zardoz (1974): A staggering, high-concept socio-political science fiction epic that polarized audiences with its bizarre imagery—most famously Sean Connery in a red loincloth and bandolier, alongside a giant floating stone head. Though a box-office failure upon release, it cemented Boorman’s reputation as an uncompromising visionary.
- Deliverance (1972): A massive commercial and critical success that earned Boorman Academy Award nominations for Best Picture and Best Director. While ostensibly a "man versus nature" survival thriller, Boorman elevated the material into a proto-slasher masterpiece culminating in one of the most terrifying, surreal jump scares in American cinematic history.
Production & Archival Metrics
- Development Timeline: Director David Kittredge spent six years (from 2018 onward) collecting archival materials, conducting interviews, and assembling assets.
- Runtime Evolution: The documentary’s assembly cut initially clocked in at a staggering 196 minutes before being carefully refined down to a theatrical runtime of 112 minutes.
- Key Interviews Featured: The film features extensive interviews with industry titans and critics, including Linda Blair, Louise Fletcher, Rospo Pallenberg, Steadicam inventor/operator Garrett Brown, Joe Dante, Karyn Kusama, Mike Flanagan, Bilge Ebiri, Simon Abrams, and Stephanie Zacharek.
Official Statements and Critical Perspectives
The strength of Boorman and the Devil lies in its refusal to offer simplistic answers. Instead, it invites an open dialogue among artists, critics, and the participants themselves regarding the true definition of cinematic success and failure.
Modern horror auteur Mike Flanagan, speaking candidly in the documentary while in production on The Exorcist: Martyrs, grows visibly emotional when discussing the societal metrics applied to artistic endeavors. He questions the fairness of branding an ambitious failure as a complete artistic void, arguing that true art must inherently risk total rejection to achieve greatness.
Critics like Bilge Ebiri and Stephanie Zacharek provide crucial historical distance, untangling the film’s production missteps from its conceptual merits. They emphasize that The Heretic suffered not from a lack of care, but from an abundance of competing, radical visions that the studio system was entirely unequipped to harmonize.
Most poignant, however, are the reflections of John Boorman himself. Interviewed at his home in Wicklow, Ireland—surrounded by physical touchstones of his career, including iconic props from Zardoz and Excalibur—Boorman reflects on a film that continues to haunt him. Though decades have passed, the visible pain associated with the public evisceration of Exorcist II remains raw. As Boorman notes, the process of filmmaking can consume a person’s life, raising the ultimate existential question for any creator: Was it worth it?
Future Outlook
As Boorman and the Devil rolls out to theaters nationwide, its cultural impact extends far beyond the nostalgic reappraisal of a single 1970s misfire. The documentary serves as a timely meditation on the contemporary cinematic landscape, where risk-taking studio swings have largely been replaced by risk-averse, algorithmic franchise maintenance.
For cinephiles and horror historians, the film has reignited passionate debates surrounding artistic autonomy, studio interference, and the elusive "director’s cut." As highlighted by grassroots fan campaigns and festival discussions following screenings, there is an overwhelming demand for home video distributors to assemble a comprehensive physical media release housing Kittredge’s original 196-minute assembly.
Ultimately, Boorman and the Devil transcends its subject matter. It is not merely a post-mortem on The Exorcist II: The Heretic, but a universal, moving testament to the creative impulse. It reminds audiences that the act of making art—even when it flies too close to the sun, alienates its audience, and brings its creators to the brink of ruin—remains a profoundly courageous endeavor. Whether the devil laughs from the back of a screening room or the box office rejects the vision entirely, Kittredge’s film argues that the scars of creation are infinitely more valuable than the safety of conformity.
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